Manitoba Potato Production Days (MPPD) wrapped up its 50th anniversary conference on Jan. 26, 2023 with half a day of programming. The show ran from Jan. 24 to 26, 2023 in Brandon, Man. at the Keystone Centre.
The last day of the conference featured presentations on:
- MHPEC’s Zack Frederick presented on verticillium wilt management with mustard biofumigation
- Mike Thornton from the University of Idaho shared the results of his study looking into the impact of wildfire smoke on potatoes
- Carl Rosen from the University of Minnesota shared a realistic view of soil health in potato cropping systems
- Manphool Fageria presented on regenerative agriculture practices being used at McCain’s Farm of the Future
Highlights included:
- Results for yield from Thornton’s study — plants had no visual symptoms and the yields showed no difference either
- Tuber size is also being impacted by wildfire smoke — depending on the variety — Thornton said
- So far no indications that smoke is changing sugar content in spuds, Thornton said
- Thornton points out that the years there’s wildfire smoke are also the hottest and driest years — so heat stress is also impacting potatoes
- Basically soil health is the condition or capacity of the soil to function as a vital ecosystem, Rosen said
- There’s a whole host of ways to measure and test soil health Rosen said, but they can be broke down to three categories – chemical, physical and biological
- The soil micro biome is important as it’s what’s building and maintaining soil, enhances nutrients uptake and can promote plant health, Rosen said
- Rosen found there was no one soil health indicator that was consistently associated with yield
- Fageria said they found that by fall ridging the soil dried faster allowing for early potato planting leading to higher yields
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